I played 'Sign' on Sunday morning--a LARP about the birth of sign language in Nicaragua among a bunch of deaf kids. It was amazing and fun and insightful and delightful. Here are some of the highlights, for me:

* My character was a joker who wanted nothing more in life than to make people laugh. When it came time to come up with a name for ourselves, I realized that if I made 'make a goofy face' the sign for my name, people would laugh *every time they said my name*. At one point, one of the kids was feeling sad at a time when I was introducing something, and everyone was supposed to start by signing my name back to me, but that kid didn't. All I had to do was sign 'goofy face' at him expectantly, and he grinned and signed 'goofy face' back at me. All text has subtext. The fact that sign language has a whole other layer of possible subtext to it that you can't really get from words was really interesting to me. And it was a fun moment in general.

* Realizing how much play and laughter can erase boundaries and awkwardness. It doesn't matter if you can't quite tell people what you're thinking if you're having fun--and having fun makes it easier to tell people what you're thinking.

* Signing 'friends' (crossed fingers) with all the other kids as we hid from the teacher under the table.

* At one point, we each got to pick a word from a pile of words and make a sign for it. After we had all chosen, the teacher gathered the remaining words and took them away. 'Want', signed another kid, across from me, watching the not-chosen words disappear. It was exactly the same way I felt.